Parrikar back at helm of Goa -
Mayabhushan, Pioneer
Senior BJP leader and former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was sworn-in for the fourth time as the Chief Minister of Goa on Tuesday, a day packed with action, both in the coastal State as well as the national Capital, where the Supreme Court of India directed that the new Government should face a floor test in the State Assembly on Thursday rendering void the Governor’s order which had given Parrikar 15 days to prove his majority. Parrikar, who resigned as Defence Minister on Monday... Read Full Article››

Naiduâ€™s building a new Andhra Pradesh -
Paran Balakrishnan, Business Line
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s a man in a tearing hurry. He’s determined to turn his truncated Andhra Pradesh into an industrial powerhouse and he’s pulling out all the stops to make it happen in double-quick time. This month the State got a new air cargo terminal at Visakhapatnam, which Naidu aims to transform into a buzzing hi-tech city. That came just a few days after Naidu had played host to Microsoft founder Bill Gates at the AP AgTech Summit, which focused on using drones... Read Full Article››

Modinomics deconstructed -
Bindu Dalmia, Pioneer
Is the Prime Minister looking beyond political arithmetic and selflessly putting the nation first, even over concerns of electoral winnabilty? Clearly, there is a global shift towards clean money, as the era of dirty cash gradually gets flushed out of the formal economies of developed nations. To that extent, Narendra Modi is not isolated among world leaders in his policy activism at economic cleansing as India has joined the fight against tax evasion becoming a signatory to OECD’s information exchange to end base erosion. Read Full Article››

Itâ€™s a major structural change -
Arun Jaitley, Business Line
India is one of the few economies in the world which has been excessively cash-dominated. A cash-dominated economy has several features, the most obvious being that the percentage of cash currency in circulation in relation to GDP is very high. In India, it was between 12 and 12.5 per cent; 86 per cent of this currency was high denominational — ?500 and ?1000. The obvious consequence of this is a tendency and an encouragement to deal more in cash. Cash becomes the lubricant and the instrument of exchange. Read Full Article››

Modi's mission 2022 -
MJ Akbar, Times of India
On 15 February this year, Isro placed 104 satellites into orbit using only a single launch of one vehicle, PSLV-C37. The video of the event, available easily enough on the net, shows the familiar zoom of a rocket entering space, and then little flicks chase one another into the deep distance until the mission is completed. Only three satellites were Indian; 96 were commissioned by two American companies, Planet Laks and Spire Global. The acceleration in space, impressive as it is, might be less spectacular than the change taking place on the ground. Read Full Article››

Much too much of a stretch -
Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, Economic Times
The Election Commission (EC) is one of the most respected institutions in India. Its impartiality is essential to ensure that democracy is free and fair, and this has rarely been in doubt. So, it is unfortunate that the timing of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections has raised suspicions over the EC’s impartiality. Like Caesar’s wife, the commission should not just be impartial but above suspicion. The simplest way out is to have simultaneous elections on a single day, whether in a general election or in states going to polls at roughly the same time. Read Full Article››

Building Gandhiâ€™s India -
M Venkaiah Naidu, Indian Express
A grateful nation paid rich tributes and celebrated the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. I would call upon every citizen to take a vow to fight various pervasive social evils like poverty, corruption, illiteracy, casteism, black money, gender discrimination, atrocities against weaker sections and the lack of sanitation and hygiene. It is a matter of concern that 70 years after Independence, the country’s progress is being hindered by such evils. Let us all strive together to realise... Read Full Article››

New economy for new India -
Jayant Sinha, My Gov
Several articles have been written recently on the challenges facing the Indian economy. Unfortunately, these articles draw sweeping conclusions from a narrow set of facts, and quite simply miss the fundamental structural reforms that are transforming the economy. Moreover, one or two quarters of GDP growth and other macro data are quite inadequate to evaluate the long-term impact of the structural reforms underway. These structural reforms are not just desirable, they are necessary to create a ‘New India’... Read Full Article››

Economics of Swachh Bharat -
Arun Jaitley, Times of India
As they say, no one can stop an idea whose time has come. Amidst the backdrop of a bloody world war, when violence was the order of the time, India achieved independence through non-violent civil disobedience, through Satyagraha. The entire nation rallied behind the Mahatma’s call and India achieved her independence setting an example for the world. It was an idea whose time had come. Likewise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a Swachh Bharat with universal sanitation by 2 October 2019... Read Full Article››

Rahul at Berkeley: A confused cacophony -
Anirban Ganguly, Pioneer
Rahul Gandhi’s Berkeley speech, unlike Nehru's, was a private affair. Bereft of an element of thought, he expressed his own state of mind and that of his party's — lacking in direction and cohesion Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech, delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, on October 31, 1949, was titled, ‘The age of crisis.’ One can’t help but express an interesting analogy and it is that the Congress, of which Nehru was once the patriarch... Read Full Article››

Cabinet reshuffle: Modi chooses performance over politics -
Poornima Joshi, Business Line
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third reshuffle of his Council of Ministers appeared an attempt to showcase ‘performance’ and ‘delivery’ over considerations of caste and politics as the country battles an economic downturn and agrarian crisis. Nine new Ministers of State made it to the Union Cabinet on Sunday, while four existing ministers — Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Gopal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi — were promoted to Cabinet rank as part... Read Full Article››